I am a technical writer and instructional designer by trade. I once went to an interview where where a hostile person (in a panel interview) asked me what I thought my English degree and writing skills had to do with the online instructional design job for which I was interviewing. I had already decided that I didn't want the job because of some of the dumb answers I got from them, so I said as nicely as I could that writing and grammar is an important facet of any online training or website, etc. Some shops can't afford QA/proofreaders so it is important to hire people that can write. Duh! But I used to hire technical writers and people are often shocked that I wanted the candidates to actually have writing degrees or that they could demonstrate experience.